# Nests and Eggs of American Birds

> A robin’s nest on the ribs of a fossil skeleton, house wrens in an old hat, and a dipper’s mossy home behind a waterfall: Ernest Ingersoll’s 1879 to 1880 natural history gathers what early naturalists knew about how North American songbirds build, lay and raise their young. It is a window on 19th-century bird study and full of clues about how hidden nests were found.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1880-ingersoll-nests-eggs-american-birds/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** Ernest Ingersoll
- **Year published:** 1880
- **Journal or source:** Book (issued in parts, 1879 to 1880), S. E. Cassino, Naturalist’s Agency, Salem, Massachusetts
- **Full citation:** Ingersoll, E. 1880. Nests and eggs of American birds. Parts 1 to 7. S. E. Cassino, Naturalist’s Agency, Salem, Massachusetts (Parts 6 and 7 issued by George A. Bates, Salem). About 160 pp., 14 plates.
- **DOI:** 10.5962/bhl.title.13448
- **Access status:** Hosted (freely available elsewhere)
- **PDF:** https://www.originalwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/1880_Ingersoll_nests-and-eggs-of-american-birds.pdf

## Tags

- **Species:** Birds > American dipper; Birds > American robin; Birds > Black-capped chickadee; Birds > Brown creeper; Birds > Brown thrasher; Birds > Curve-billed thrasher; Birds > Grey catbird; Birds > Hermit thrush; Birds > Horned lark; Birds > House wren; Birds > Marsh wren; Birds > Ovenbird; Birds > Sedge wren; Birds > Swainson’s thrush; Birds > Varied thrush; Birds > Verdin; Birds > Wood thrush; Birds > Yellow warbler; Birds > Yellow-breasted chat
- **Region:** North America > Canada; North America > United States
- **Behaviour and ecology:** Behaviour; Feeding; Interspecific competition; Migration; Nesting; Predator avoidance; Site fidelity
- **Methods and technology:** Direct observation; Literature review
- **Data type:** New field data; Review
- **Observer qualification:** Not needed
- **Discipline:** Behaviour and ecology
- **Year published:** 1880

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: about 100 North American songbirds, numbered 1 to 100 in the book, from the thrushes to the wood warblers. Among them: American robin (Turdus migratorius), varied thrush, called the Oregon robin (Turdus naevius), wood thrush (Turdus mustelinus), hermit and olive-backed thrushes, mockingbirds, catbird, brown and curve-billed thrashers, bluebirds, American dipper, called the water ouzel (Cinclus mexicanus), kinglets, gnatcatchers, titmice and chickadees, including the black-capped chickadee (Parus atricapillus), verdin, nuthatches, brown creeper, wrens, including the house wren (Troglodytes aedon) and long-billed and short-billed marsh wrens, horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), pipits, and many warblers, including the yellow warbler, called the summer yellowbird, the ovenbird (Seiurus auricapillus), the waterthrushes and the yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens). Names are those used in the book (1879 to 1880); many have since changed. Nest predators and competitors mentioned: domestic cats, blackbirds, meadow-mice, crows, cowbirds.
- **Location and habitat:** North America north of Mexico, mainly the United States and British America (Canada), with records from Alaska, Labrador, Hudson’s Bay, the Rocky Mountains (Colorado, Montana, Wind River peaks), Texas, Arizona, California, New England, New York and Michigan. Habitats from gardens, orchards, barns and houses to woodland, mountain streams and waterfalls, marshes, prairies and Arctic tundra.
- **Topics:** natural history of nesting; oology (the study of birds’ eggs); breeding range; arrival dates and timing of nest-building; nest sites and nest architecture; nest materials; egg number, size, colour and markings; incubation; care and feeding of the young; number of broods; nest-site fidelity; unusual nest sites near people; distraction displays (feigning lameness); domed and hidden nests as protection from enemies; unused “spurious” nests built by marsh wrens; house wrens taking over other birds’ nests; cowbirds and nest destruction; egg collecting.
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Review: a compilation of published accounts (Audubon, Brewer, Coues, Nuttall, Burroughs, Muir and many others) and letters from correspondents, with the author’s own observations (for example Norwich, Connecticut, 1873, and Colorado). No dates of systematic data collection. This copy (Smithsonian Libraries, via the Internet Archive) holds Parts 1 to 7, with cover dates from March 1879 (Part 1) to October 1879 (Part 3); the text ends partway through species 100, the yellow-breasted chat. The covers of Parts 1 to 3 name S. E. Cassino as publisher; the cover of Parts 6 and 7 names George A. Bates. The publisher’s prospectus promises a chapter on forming egg collections, which is not in this copy.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

Ernest Ingersoll, a former zoologist of the United States Geological Survey, wrote this book in parts in 1879 and 1880 for egg collectors and young naturalists. At the time there was no American book for identifying birds’ eggs. He set out to bring together the scattered records of how North American birds breed, adding his own observations and notes sent to him by other naturalists.

For each species the book aims to give:

- Where the bird breeds and when it arrives in spring.

- The nest: the site chosen, the materials and how the nest is built, and features for recognising it.

- The eggs: when laid, how many, their size and markings, illustrated on colour plates.

- Incubation and the young: how long the birds sit, what the young are fed, and how the parents care for them.

This copy covers about 100 species, from the thrushes (starting with the American robin) through the wrens, larks and pipits to the wood warblers, with 14 plates of eggs.

### 2. What they found

The book is a natural history rather than a study with results. Some examples of what it reports:

- Robins nest almost anywhere: in orchard trees, on fence rails, pillars, ledges, inside a well, and once on the ribs of a fossil skeleton in a college museum. The female builds with mud pressed into shape with her feet and breast, lets each layer dry, and lines the nest with soft grass. Nests are about 4 inches across inside and 2 inches deep. The four or five blue-green eggs average 1.10 by 0.80 inches; incubation takes 12 to 14 days, and the young stay in the nest 10 to 15 days more. Two, and in older birds often three, broods are raised.

- Site fidelity: a robin observed by Mary Treat nested on the same piazza pillars and the same oak for three years, building a second and then a third storey on the old oak nest.

- Wood thrushes build on a foundation of dead leaves, 6 to 40 feet up, and both sexes build for five or six days.

- American dippers build domed balls of moss beside fast water, once behind a waterfall where the outside stayed wet with spray. One observer saw a dipper shake water from its feathers over the nest, which he took to be keeping the moss green and growing.

- Black-capped chickadees hide their nests so well that Ingersoll never found one. John Burroughs found one only after a boy hid by the tree and watched where the parents carrying food went.

- Horned larks in Labrador nest in moss that matches the sitting bird; when disturbed, the female flutters away feigning lameness, and the male joins in.

- House wrens nest in all kinds of places near people (an old hat, the skull of an ox, a coat sleeve, the box of a doctor’s gig) and will drag out the nests of bluebirds and martins to take over the site.

- Long-billed marsh wrens build extra nests that are never used. Observers offered different explanations: nests abandoned when found by enemies, or decoys to throw an enemy “off the track”.

- Ovenbirds build a domed nest on the woodland floor from the materials around it, so it blends in. Ingersoll suggests the roof guards against the eyes of enemies rather than the weather, since nests sheltered by rocks or roots are often left open.

### 3. What they concluded

The book does not draw general conclusions. The prospectus states that, when all recorded observations are brought together, much more is known about the breeding of North American birds than readers might expect, and that the nesting season is a part of bird life that earlier bird books had touched on only in passing.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Lithographic colour plates of eggs, drawn from typical specimens in public and private collections, and wood-cuts of nests.

- Practical clues to finding nests are scattered through the text, for example watching parents carrying food, waiting quietly at a distance, and searching the ground slowly where a nest is suspected or flushing the bird.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Many of the nest-finding methods described here are a form of sign reading: watching where adults carry food, noticing an alarmed parent, and reading how a nest blends into its surroundings.

- The book is a record of North American nesting behaviour as observed in the 1870s, with historical names and ranges that can be compared with today’s.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: Nests and Eggs of American Birds (Ingersoll, 1880). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/1880-ingersoll-nests-eggs-american-birds/